Darkman [Soundtrack]

Danny Elfman | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 17, 1990)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack
• Label: MCA Records
• ASIN: B000002OEV
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #218,527 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Songs Include : 1. Main Titles (01:38) / 2. Woe Darkman... Woe (06:09) / 3. Rebuilding / Failure (03:15) / 4. Love Theme (00:55) / 5. Julie Transforms (01:10) / 6. Rage / Peppy Science (01:36) / 7. Cheating Pauley (03:19) / 8. Double Durante (01:49) / 9. The Plot Unfolds (Dancing Freak) (07:01) / 10. Carnival From Hell (03:16) / 11. Julie Discovers Darkman (01:58) / 12. High Steel (04:18) / 13. Finale / End Credits (03:39)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very good Mr. Elfman, with four under your belt in 1 year..., October 14, 2002

By 

"putayuflinch" (Bangor Island) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Darkman (Audio CD)

WOW! Danny Elfman penned four scores in one year..."Edward Scissorhands", "Dick Tracy", "Nightbreed", and "Darkman". Wow! This man is truly incredible! Enough with the small talk and lets get down to business. Even 1990 was 12 years ago, it was a big year for Elfman. "Main Titles" delivers an extremely brooding theme, at its first showing, it creeps along slowly. During the rest of the song and score, it comes faster. "Woe, the Darkman, Woe..." is a good somber cue. Elfman uses organs to create a Gothic feel. Its just really amazing the way he brings these things together to create something mind-blowing. "Creating Pauley" is something incredible in its ability to take us right to the lab, where Peyton works his buns off creating his synthetic skin. Pauley was a very ugly person and he was going to need extra skin to make someone so hideous. "Carnival from Hell" is really kind of creepy, with the circus music bouncing along so merrily. Dark tones emerge throughout the duration of the track and finally come out more audibly at the end on the cue when Darkman gets really [ticked] at the carnie. "High Steel" turned the Darkman theme into a sort of "swashbuckler" theme, which wasn't bad, but it just didn't fit into the feel of the film. "Finale/ End Credits" was great...of course. All Elfman scores have good finales. Its a basic fact of film music and whoever has a problem better get their hands on an Elfman CD...FAST!(Preferrably "Batman".) The score is dark, has some humorous moments, action-packed, and sometimes really ...creepy but nevertheless...its very good, despite its shortcomings, if it even has any.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Elf-Man, November 22, 2011

By 

Inspector Gadget "Go Go Gadget Reviews" (On the trail of Doctor Claw) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Darkman (Audio CD)

Danny Elfman is very far down on my list of notable composers. Don't get me wrong, he's done some wonderful stuff in his career. His work on the Tim Burton Batman movies, Scrooged, and, let's not forget, the Simpsons makes him a pop culture icon, but he is a composer who's career has been defined by two particular directors, namely Burton and Raimi. The fact that he seems to be stuck as the go-to-guy for comic-book and superhero movies is pretty bad luck as well, for Elfman AND for movie-goers.

Elfman's reluctance to deviate from his trademark style has resulted in the scores to Men in Black, Men in Black II, Hellboy 2, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Dick Tracy, Hulk, and Mars Attacks all sounding virtually identical. Darkman, I am sorry to say, is no exception to this rule. Large chunks of this dark, twisted, operatic score are lifted from Scrooged and Batman, but where those scores succeeded Darkman just barely amuses. It's a completely pedestrian effort that works on a basic level but fails to stand out among any of the scores listed above.

I can't help but wonder how much better the film might have been (not dissing it all, I really like Darkman) had it been scored by Silvestri, or Goldsmith, or Kamen. But they were already quite busy in 1990, as was Elfman, which is probably why he took the easy way out and plagiarized his own work. Darkman deserved a unique score of its own and not just a rehash of better cues from his previous films.

4.0 out of 5 stars Darkman, July 25, 2007

By 

Lee A. Trujillo Lopez "Lee Trujillo" (Centennial, CO) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Darkman (Audio CD)

I bought this CD as a gift for my husband. He enjoys it very much.